


a wolf, seeking warmth at the hearth

by ambyr



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 13:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18099326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: Ragnelle has bargained herself free of the forest, but she does not know the answers to all the riddles of King Arthur's court.





	a wolf, seeking warmth at the hearth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobberBaroness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts).



The fire catches Ragnelle's eyes each time she enters the king's feasting hall, whether it lurks as smouldering embers or leaps to scorch the hearthstone. In the forest, fire is always a threat. 

At her side, Ragnelle's husband cuts her meat for her, slicing it into dainty pieces. To the rest of the hall it is the gesture of a besotted husband, eager to serve his bride at even the smallest of tasks. Only she and he know different; only they know this bride has never held a knife. She forces herself to look away from the fire, to watch Gawain's movements. She _will_ learn this skill; she will carry a knife. She has lived too many years as the only creature in the forest without fangs, without claws. Her nails have been neatly trimmed to match the fashion of the court. She will not allow herself to remain unarmed.

The fire pops, and Ragnelle's gaze jerks toward it. Knights and ladies look away, embarrassed at having been caught staring at the court's newest and strangest acquisition. Only the queen meets her gaze. 

Ragnelle is the first to look away. She turns back to Gawain, to his knife. In its blade, she fancies for a moment she can see the reflection of the queen's measuring eyes.

* * *

The queen summons her the next morning, sending a page who interrupts while Gawain is braiding Ragnelle's hair. Ragnelle would as well use her new knife to hack off the mass that once lay matted and tangled about her face, but Gawain is unaccountably fond of her hair. Their first night together he combed it a thousand thousand times, freeing leaf and twig and hardened mud until it swayed with the grace of a weeping willow's boughs. Now, each morning, he binds it back, sometimes with ribbons, other times with flowers. She cranes her head backward, struggling to see what he is doing. She knows, from the whispers and laughter of the other ladies, that this too can be a weapon. This too is something she must learn.

The page gawks at them.

"What?" asks Gawain, easily. "I have sisters, you know."

"Yes, sir," says the page, but Ragnelle cannot help but feel, without understanding why, that they have taken a loss. She reaches behind her, touches Gawain for comfort, and takes up the plait to continue it, though her gestures are less sure than his.

* * *

The queen and her ladies are in the tower, where the light streams in through every window. Some clack away at looms; some stitch thread through frames; some guide a spindle's drop and turn.

"Ah, Ragnelle, you've come," says Guinevere.

Ragnelle sees no signal, but a servant appears at her side, handing her a spindle. Ragnelle stands, turning it in her hands, watching the rise and fall of the spindles beside her. They are in their own way as mesmerizing as the fire. She starts when the queen speaks.

"You may leave us," she says, to her ladies. "--no, stay, Ragnelle."

Ragnelle stays, listening as the ladies clatter down the stairs, chattering as they go. Some few look back, curious, only to be turned away by the queen's cool gaze.

"You do not know how to spin," Guinevere says flatly. "Or to weave, or to sew."

"No," Ragnelle says, and then, since this seems to be a time for honestly, "You do not like me."

"No," says Guinevere.

"Why?"

Guinevere raises her brows, and lets her own hands still at her loom at last. "My king rode his kingdom for a year, collecting answers for a riddle from every woman he passed, while his farmers clamoured for advice and his lords for protection at the borders, and factions grew over which he had no sway."

Ragnelle digests this. "He did not ask you."

"No," Guinevere agrees. "I might have answered something he could not give."

"You do not like my answer?" Ragnelle asks, cautiously.

Guinevere sighs, and Ragnelle sees, suddenly, that beneath the braids and paint, the queen is _old_. Old enough to be her mother, perhaps; old enough to be her husband's aunt, certainly. "If what you truly wished was sovereignty, child, why not stay in the forest? The trees would not fight you for it. The deer would not seek to rule you."

"There is very little freedom in cold and hunger," Ragelle says. "And the boar may not seek to rule me, but it will gouge a hole in my stomach all the same."

"Fairly spoken," Guinevere says. "And yet I envy what you had, all the same." 

"The forest is still there if you wish it," Ragnelle says.

Guinevere laughs; Ragnelle cannot tell if there is humor in it. "So it is. But my people are here, and when I was granted power over them, it was with the understanding that I would give them things in return." Something passes across her face. "Some I cannot give, but--here." She reaches for Ragnelle's spindle. "You wind the wool like so. We do not do this merely to entertain ourselves, you know. Our thread, our cloth--you wear it now. It is what keeps all my people free from cold."

"I did not think you did anything without purpose," Ragnelle says. "It is only that I am still learning what those purposes may be." She fumbles with the spindle, trying to catch and keep the rhythm, and the queen's hands reach in to adjust it.

"So I have seen," Guinevere agrees. "Learn, then. Learn as swiftly as you can. And I hope, for your sake, that this court does prove a safer haven than your forest."

She turns to call her ladies back up the stairs and leaves Ragnelle to contemplate the turning of the whorl. Her braids feel unaccountably tight, and the knife at her waist is heavy. But slowly, slowly, the thread grows.


End file.
